February 15, 1993

Three adults and three teen-agers, all residents of a building notorious for drug sales and gunfire, were lined up face down on the living-room floor of an apartment in the Bronx early yesterday and shot to death, execution style, with one bullet to the head of each victim. The killers escaped, the police said. The motive was unclear, but the police found $4,400 in the flat and ruled out robbery. And neighbors said one victim may have been a small-time drug dealer and perhaps was the intended target, while the others were apparently innocent bystanders caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Opening a week that his advisers say could be the most important in shaping his Presidency, Bill Clinton is seeking to sell his economic program with one of the most intensive public relations campaigns ever staged from the White House. Mr. Clinton will deliver his first televised address from the Oval Office at 9 Monday night as part of an elaborate buildup intended to set the stage before he presents the package -- with its mix of unpopular spending cuts and tax increases -- to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

The economic plan that President Clinton introduces on Wednesday will trumpet spending for education, job training and public works as the key to building a richer nation, his aides say. But these investments could prove the biggest gamble of his Presidency. The reason: the public may not see the benefits for years -- if ever.

A new kind of "boat people" are landing on the shores of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, whose liberal asylum policies have made it a prime destination. They are the product of a traffic in people by which smugglers are making large profits from the refugees' desire to reach safer and more prosperous shores. The new refugees, mainly Iraqis but also families fleeing the fighting in the former Yugoslavia or the devastation of Somalia, take a circuitous route by road, rail, air and sea and pay large amounts of money to be delivered to Sweden or other Nordic countries by "people smugglers," whose trade is centered in Moscow.

METRO DIGEST YOUTHS, TOO, ARE SHELTER RESIDENTS Across New York, people who run homeless shelters say they are being slowly overwhelmed by the growing number of young people seeking shelter. Far needier than the classic rebellious runaways seeking adventure, these young people have put new and special burdens on a system that can barely handle the more common problems of homeless families and the mentally ill. A1. NEW YORK CITY